| dc.description.abstract | In the United States, sex education teachings can be split into two main categories: comprehensive sex education and abstinence-only sex education. The thesis will look at abstinence-only sex education, which presents abstinence until marriage and heterosexuality as the only respectable and entirely reliable option for teenagers and young adults, and its supporters, sexual conservatives. By combining an analysis of abstinence-only curricula, sexual conservatives’ discourses, young women’s testimonies, and existing quantitative evidence, the thesis argues that abstinence-only sex education is an ineffective, unreliable, and discriminatory way of teaching sex education that hurts women. To prove this assumption, the thesis explores two main aspects. First, the thesis explores how sexual conservatives’ “traditional” family values pervade sex education curricula. Throughout the thesis, it becomes clear that abstinence-only sex education is only a question of morality that relies on conservative family values. Abstinence-only sex education becomes a way for sexual conservatives to convey their vision of sexuality and the family, where sex is reserved for married, heterosexual couples and the ideal family is hierarchical and based on strong gender roles. Then, the thesis addresses the impact of abstinence-only sex education on women’s health and sexuality. To keep women in line with their values, sexual conservatives tend to control their sexuality to prevent any kind of “misbehavior.” In abstinence-only sex education, young women are told how and when to perform sex, how to be around boys, and how a “nice girl” should act. For sexual conservatives, women must be asexual and models of purity. Girls are also told that they must control boys’ sexual impulses and are responsible for avoiding any unwanted sexual contact. Moreover, the systematic heteronormativity and cisnormativity of abstinence-only sex education harm and discriminates against LGBTQ+ teenage and young adult women. Abstinence-only sex education encourages young girls (heterosexual, cisgender, and LGBTQ+ girls) to develop a biased and limited vision of sexuality and exposes them to physical and mental health issues. | eng |